Tea won't fix it
by WhoIsThisWeirdo
Summary: Jane has a bad feeling and can't seem to tell why. Lisbon ends up making it clear in the worst possible way, and words dart through the air before he can hear himself saying them. He reckons he might have created - brought up - a problem that chamomile tea is not going to solve. Rated T because there's one bad word there and I wanna be sure. DISCLAIMER: I obviously do not own TM


Jane would have liked to be able to pretend that nothing was wrong, especially since today looked exactly like a normal day at the FBI, he thought, as he walked through the door. But that could not be done, for something was horribly out of place and he could feel it by a mile. He took step after step, for some reason sinking deeper into the floor every time.

He tossed distracted greetings at people he met, trying to read something off them, to figure out what had so violently been torn off from his already unstable version of reality that made it all feel wrong. The idea was chewing at his spine and he could hear the sound its teeth made when they clenched in the same maddening way he heard his blood flow through his fingers when everything was too loud and he was trying to force it quiet.

So he made tea. Tea always fixed some of the issues, including the noise. The steam that rose from the hot liquid in the cup seemed to wrap around his head like cotton, and then all sound was shut out. Yet it didn't do much this time. By the time he got to his couch, he was feeling as though his bones were trying to break through his skin and run away. He melted off into the worn leather, faking a nap, as always, and paying attention to every sound around him on a secondary line of thought, while the primary one was still trying to tell his bad hunches apart.

And then his mind suddenly went blank when a certain rhythm caused his heart to fold in onto itself until it was merely a needle point and then grow back to its original size. Lisbon's footsteps.

"Jane."

Oh.

_There _ it was.

That was what was wrong. He could hear it clearly. He could feel it, it echoed in his bones. He didn't open his eyes. He wasn't entirely sure he would survive looking in hers right then. He needed to…

"_Jane."_ she said again, and it sounded like nothing of what he could have afforded to put off until it was convenient.

Alright then.

His eyes fluttered open and he bit back on a yawn that seemed to come from a bottomless pit and threatened to break his rib cage. He muttered her name low in his throat, so low that no sound actually left his lips, and tried to find her whereabouts in the room. She was at his feet, taking up a ridiculously small space on the couch. He made another attempt at verbalization while shifting around in sitting position, in order to make room for her.

"Lisbon. Good to see you."

She smiled in a way that let him know it had been long since she had last fallen for one of his fake naps. She whispered "You too." and then gathered the courage not to immediately abandon the whole thing, apologize for waking him up and walk off with the greatest possible unsuspicious speed.

"Can we talk?"

Somehow, he let it show that he was surprised. Guilt started pulling down on her collarbone.

"Anything for you, Teresa."

That was when her expression visibly changed, and what even did it /mean/ now? He understood nothing of it anymore. There was some sort of sadness, a healthy amount of weariness… She was trying to get it over with as soon as possible, but also wishing to delay it as much as she could. Something in what she was about to say scared her, and he immediately wanted to unsee that.

"Walk with me?" she asked, and he was up before the last vowel had left her lips. He left the building and walked around the parking lot for a while, watching her try and form words in the corner of his eye, mouthing muted sentences before shaking them off and starting again.

"I might be leaving," she breathed out in the end, and it was all it took for Jane's lungs to start caving in. "I thought you should find out first, as a friend."

"I don't… Oh?"

He had meant to sound curious but calm, yet it had come out bearing an uncanny resemblance to the yelp of a beaten dog. And Lisbon had heard it. Loud and clear. And just like Jane earlier, she wanted to erase it from her mind the second she understood what it meant.

"Marcus made an offer I've… been thinking about." she went on, and it was all so obvious that it hurt the pride in both of them. Lisbon was trying to deceive herself, rather than him. Jane knew, and she knew he did.

"You're gonna say no", she heard him say, even though he had no right to, but he also _did_. In his voice, there was the usual confidence of the man that always had it his way, but it was only a facade, covering the frightened tremble and the muted question mark begging for reassurance.

Lisbon needed air, but there didn't seem to be any left in the world.

Jane's train of thought went off the tracks.

_You can't say yes. If you go, my ribs are going to turn to dust, and here you'll have my heart, my unshielded heart with torn heartstrings, beating erratically, spilling blood everywhere, allowing a metallic taste to nest at the back of my throat forever more. If you go, my bones will cut through each other and I'll never walk again. If you go, I will wake up with demons clinging to the back of my neck that no cup of tea is ever going to get me rid of. If you go, instead of hearing your voice, I'm gonna hear my blood flow and the deepest layer of skin brush against my flesh and I'm gonna hear the stillness of the air in the summer heat and I'm gonna go crazy._

By the time he registered his thoughts, they had come and gone, leaving behind nothing but a small voice humming a spiteful lilt. He, who had claimed to want nothing but her happiness, dare being selfish now. How horrible of a human, this Patrick Jane.

An eternity had passed since the last time she could recall him having made a sound, and still Lisbon could not get herself to reply. The words had died in her throat, drowned in the troubled sea of emerald and black ink behind her eyes.

"Jane. You don't get to decide", she heard sometime later, from far, far away. "You just don't." The voice didn't sound like hers.

Of course he didn't. But how was that fair?** HOW WAS THAT FAIR?** She didn't love Pike, he knew it. _Jane_ taught her to trust her instincts and _Jane_ encouraged her to think and _Jane_ broke the routine in the most unexpected ways and HE was GRAND. He was a show. He kept her going and he kept her motivated and it was uncommon, but she liked it! She _loved it_. It had downsides all right, but he was trying.

Pike? Pike was courteous and he was considerate and he had never demanded Lisbon do something against her explicit will (yet), and he took her boringly fancy places that required formal wear and he spoke words of nothing and it was all nice, but she didn't love him. She was only going for Pike because it seemed more of a normal relationship than anything else. But he **BORED** Lisbon to death and she loathed that. She just concealed it so well that even she couldn't see it.

The words were making strange noises, like a typewriter, as they came, one after another, echoing in his skull. Only when he took a second look at the woman before him did he realize that he had said each and every one out loud.

Surprise quickly left Lisbon's features, making room for panic, and later for anger. He could feel the tension building, nearly pushing him away, and lord, that second took ages to end.

"Fair?! _Nothing_ is fucking fair, Jane. You're not fair!" she shouted, anger and anguish and other things not to be told apart making it hard to be coherent and logical. Why did it all have to be so goddamn _dramatic?_

"_Oh_, and you lying to yourself is gonna fix that?"

He knew what was next. In all honesty, he had it coming, and tea wasn't gonna fix any of it.

He was right, but that Teresa reckoned it didn't give him the power to make life choices for her and it didn't allow him to push her around. He'd been doing that for too damn long already.

She felt the muscles in her arm tense and she moved it without knowing how or when, eyes suddenly cold, fixing him. Sadness covered most of his features in a thin veil. The rest were frozen still, patiently waiting for the world behind his closed eyes to shatter.

Something rose in her chest and drowned the anger. It resembled fear and even if she had no reason to be afraid, it felt real, the sort of real dreams are when you're aware it's a dream yet can't wake up. Her lungs were so empty that the walls touched together, yet her heart raced like crazy on no oxygen at all, each beat hammering at her temples and crushing her bones. A cry clung in her throat, but she found it was more of a ghost, as she couldn't have voiced it if she'd wanted.

Patrick never felt the pain shoot through his skin to the very last of nerve endings. He never felt the red mark fade away around the edges and never felt the heat melt into the chilly air.

What he felt was a very tender,

gentle touch

of lips

on his

as Teresa's fingers locked around his wrist.

Because he was right, and apparently, it did mean everything she didn't want it to.


End file.
